I wish I had an easy fix to make the problem go away forever but I have yet to discover that. I do, however, have a quick maneuver that pretty much negates the annoyance. After some guess-and-check with some of my hunches, I found it's the Dock process that's causing the weirdness. I haven't substantiated this theory, but I'm guessing that this only occurs if  your dock is on your second screen. I don't think it would occur if it was on your MacBook Pro's screen. As far as Mac Mini's are concerned, I don't think you can avoid this with a multi-monitor set up. I'm guessing this has to do with the HDMI/DVI conversion that the Mac does for second screens.

Here's how you fix it. Either go to Applications > Utilities > Activity Monitor or just click on the Spotlight (the magnifying glass in the top right of the screen) and search for Activity Monitor. This nifty little tool, if you've never used it, allows you to look at all the processes your Mac is presently running. I wouldn't go willy-nilly in here if you don't what you're doing; you could do something you'll seriously regret. However, what we're going to do is pretty innocuous. Find the Dock process and click on the Stop Process stop sign in the top left of the window. Don't worry about losing your Dock forever! Mac OS X monitors the Dock process and if it sees that the Dock process has ended, it automatically restarts it within thirty seconds or so. Essentially what you're doing is restarting your Dock process. While we haven't cured the disease here, we've certainly allayed the symptom.

Hopefully that helps. If you have any way to solve this long-term or you have a better way to solve it, leave it in the comments or tweet it at me.

The Arcade Fire - Funeral

A truly amazing album that only has gotten better in time. When I first got this album when it came out, I didn't much care for it but when I saw them live a few months back, it just sent me into a Funeral listening spree. This has some of the finest tracks of all this decade in "Rebellion" and "Wake Up (Lies)" but there isn't a sour track on the whole album.

The xx - Eponymous

This is my favorite album of the past decade. This album evokes such emotion. I absolutely adore their voices. I love the beats. I just love. A lot. This album. It is loved. By me. While most albums have one or two songs that stand out to nearly everyone that listens to it, this album has different songs to different people. Almost every fan has a different favorite. While my favorite is easily "Infinity" I have heard others say the highlight track is "Basic Space", "Crystallized", "Islands", and "Fantasy". I can see a case for almost every song. Net of the story: awesome.

Bon Iver - Eponymous

Though released just this year, I already feel this is a timeless album. Justin Vernon of Bon Iver captures that raw emotion that defined first album, For Emma, Forever Ago yet manages to work in memorable melodies that complement his unique vocal style. This album definitely has highes and lows, and I admit there are tracks I typically skip, but the highes are simply breathtaking. I adore "Holocene" and "Perth".

Feist - Let It Die

I don't have a ton to say about this album other than I really like it. Most like "Inside and Out" but I love the simple honesty of "Gatekeeper".

Stars - Set Yourself on Fire

I cannot get enough of Amy Millan's voice. She has a honey-sweet voice without being grating or childish. It is simply pleasing aurally. I also enjoy that they use their songs as a mean to tell a story. If you enjoy this one, be sure to check out any of their other music. It's all great.

Florence + The Machine - Lungs

Some people don't care for Florence, but I really dig her epic take on the glitter-goth-chamber (those may be mutually exclusive concepts, but whatev) pop. I really love the epic feel of songs like "Cosmic Love" and "Rabbit Heart (Raise It Up)" as well as the power gothy feels of "Howl" and "Drumming". I like it all. You can decide if you like it.

That's what I have for now. I may do another thing like this if it gets enough views or comments. If you have any favorites of your own, leave them in the comments.

Brian Holt's Bucketlist:

Places to see:

Africa:
Asmara
Casablanca

Asia:
Acre
Bethlehem
Damascus
Dubai
Hong Kong
Jerusalem
Macau
Tokyo

Australia/Oceania:
Auckland
Fiji
Sydney

Europe:
Amsterdam
Athens
Barcelona
Budapest
Cagliari
Cinque Terre
Dublin
Edinburgh
Florence
Lisbon
Madrid
Marseille
Naples
Palermo
Prague
Ravenna
Reykjavik
St. Petersburg
Venice
Vienna

North America:
Boston
Havana
Kingston
Miami
Nassau
New York City
Toronto
Washington DC

South America:
Cusco
Machu Pichu
Rio de Janeiro
Sao Paolo

Places to see a game:
Cowboys @ Cowboy Stadium
Cubs @ Wrigley Field
Gators @ The Swamp
Inter/Milan @ San Siro
Knicks @ Madison Square Garden
Lakers @ Staples Center
Manchester United @ Old Trafford
Michigan @ The Big House
Packers @ Lambeau Field
Red Sox @ Fenway Park
Seahawks @ Century Link Stadium
Yankees @ Yankee Stadium

Events to see:
NBA All-Star Weekend
NBA Finals
NHL Game
Summer Olympics
Superbowl
World Cup
World Series

Things to do:
Kite surf
Make a large contribution to the open source world
Publish a novel
Run Ragnar
Skydive
Start a business

This one is a bit of a tricky one, especially if you are not primarily a Javascript developer and not intimately familiar with its inner workings. The issue arrises when you create a Javascript pop-up window, close it, and then try to open it again. Or when you create a pop-up focus on something else, and the click on the link trying to refocus on the same window and nothing happens. At least for me, this was a pretty big "What the hell?" kind of moment because I have lots of pop-up windows with Javascript and never have had a problem before. What changed?

If you having these symptoms, your problem was likely mine. You likely have named your pop-up window function and your pop-up window var the same thing. In my case, I creatively named them both "popUp" and it turns out in Javascript this a no-no. Normally it's just not a good idea but it still works but as it turns out, in Javascript this actually will create issues. Javascript removes the pointer to the function and points to it to the window thus disconnecting you from the ability to call that particular function. Lame, right? Well, that's how it is so I suppose we should get better in our naming schemes. Hope that helps. Feel free to pose questions.

googlePop

If you do use it, it would be cool to know where it ends up. Leave it a comment or send an email to gpop at bricode period com. Happy coding.

Which brings me to my next point. A lot of people ask me how I feel about open source software. Most people when posing this question to me expect me to gush about how great it is like most other developers and are surprised when I am not so quick to do so. I think it is positively fantastic that people take their personal time to do it and I use many open source projects on a daily basis like Linux, GIMP, Eclipse, OpenOffice, MacPorts, Apache, MySQL, PHP, and the list goes on and on. In fact, my livelihood is based on being a LAMP stack developer: all open source stuff. Obviously I am appreciative of the efforts of others.

That being said, I firmly believe that man deserves to benefit from his labors. That is not to say by any means one cannot make money through open source software: you can. Certainly, millions and millions of dollars are made annually by companies with open source projects (see: Sun Microsystems/Oracle.)  But there is also a place for closed source projects. I simply cannot relate to those that believe that code should be open source. I believe that closed source projects drive competition and that competition drives innovation and lateral thinking. It comes down to in large part the argument does code reuse or competition promote innovation more and I favor the latter. Certainly there is merit to the opposing argument: if I ever need a module to do some particular task and I notice that cnn.com has a function like that, I could just go grab it. It saves time. But what if by making me redo and replicate his function I find a new way to optimize it by developing my own algorithm? I believe you lose too many opportunities by open sourcing everything.

Overall, I am satisfied with how things are now. Each has its place. I think we could work on software patents and how they work, but that is another story for another day. I am resolving to contribute more to the open source community so that others can reap the benefits I have. I need to stand on the shoulders of giants so others may do the same, so to speak.

I am becoming convinced day by day that Stanford is the greatest institution of higher education in the world. Rarely do I hear anything negative about the school and often do I hear things that are very positive. I am thoroughly impressed with their apparent to educate the world.

What spurns this sudden gushing of praise for the Cardinal? Well, let us put into perspective why I am in the position to appreciate them. I recently decided to suspend my studies (as well as transfer from BYU to Utah) to assume a full-time job and finish my degree via night classes. I was hired this week by Deseret Digital Media Group to do web development, specifically on ksl.com and the classifieds. As such, I am taking a semester off to gauge how much additional I can load with work and school.

With that to qualify it, I am slightly saddened to not immediately continue my education. Step in Stanford and their wondrous free education program. Stanford CS last semester offered a free class, Intro to AI. As of this semester, they will be adding two more free classes, Machine Learning and Intro to Databases. I just finished signing up for Intro to Databases. Though I am decently versed in the practical applications of databases, my theory is not entirely solid. As such, an exercise in it from a university should be entirely applicable to me, especially in my new line of work as a LAMP developer.

I implore you to sign up and partecipate in their courses. Such participation will encourage not only further CS classes but perhaps even other materials. Thank you Stanford!

Machine Learning

Introduction to Artificial Intelligence

Introduction to Databases

I decided to start out with one of my favorite albums of all time to get the ball rolling. What a masterpiece album. Before you write me off as a huge Low fanboy (which, I give you, I am) I should tell you why I prize this album so much. One of the things I value most in music is emotion. That seems to be an obvious statement, but I judge the worth of a song or album greatly on how much emotion is I can perceive from an album. And not all music conveys emotion effectively. As much as it fun to listen to and dance to, Katy Perry's E.T. evokes no emotion for me. I also realize that music like hard rock and metal very effectively communicates emotions like anger, fear, pain, and other things, but not only am I not inclined towards to the music, but their not emotions in which I care to indulge.

That all being said, this whole album (and Low's catalog in a whole) is such emotionally charged music that it feels as if Alan Sparhawk is bearing his soul to you. He so effectively communicates hope, melancholy, despair, gratitude, frustration, etc. that it is simply inspiring. Even after six years on the market, the album still manages to move me. The album has a couple stand-out tracks but is solid end-to-end without any sour tracks on the whole album. Three of the best tracks come right at beginning with "Monkey", "California", and "Silver Rider". "Silver Rider" may be the single greatest song at depicting in its soundscape what hope is. I honestly cannot recommend this album enough.

Listen to this album when: reflecting on the human experience

If this album was a piece of classic literature, it would be: The Betrothed by Alessandro Manzoni

If this album was a color, it would be: sunrise yellow

First, to give you an idea of what is happening (in case you do not already know) is that in Windows and just about every operating system, there is a concept called focus. The window you are currently working with and view is the window that has focus. Most operating systems have the windows without focus grayed out a bit. Normally shifting focus is not an issue because you just click on the window that you want to focus on and you normally will not even tell the difference. The issues lies is when you are in a full-screen application, like watching a movie or playing a game. When another application requests focus when you are in a full-screen application, it will minimize your application. This is the issue we need to prevent.

Far and above the most common cause of this that I saw researching this issue was AVG Antivirus. Apparently, the new update has some sort of issue and constantly requests focus to the point of instantly minimizing whatever full applications you have. The fix for this is either just uninstall completely or wait for the new update for them to patch it.

The easiest suspect is if you get any notifications in your task bar. If your application minimizes and a notification bubble immediately pops up, you have your suspect there. Try to minimize the amount of applications you have running in your task bar at any given time. If you do not know what something does in your task bar, you can probably just close it.

Give this program a try. It is called Malwarebytes Anti Malware and it looks for malicious programs that can request focus away from the on which program you are working. Download the program; run the scan; fix whatever it finds. That may solve your problem.

Though unlikely your problem, my issue was with the webcam. The software suite for HP Deluxe Webcam, Arcsoft Magic-i, was, for whatever reason, requesting focus away and thus causing my games to minimize. After uninstalling it, the problem went magically away.

And now, if after the aforementioned steps, you still cannot find what is going on, try this. There is a program put out by Microsoft called Process Monitor. Go there and download the program and run it. It literally shows every process that your computer runs, so within seconds, the list will be populated with millions of entries. Needless to say, this can be a bit of a process. Run the program that keeps minimizing until it minimizes again. After it minimizing, click the button on Process Monitor to stop monitoring the processes so you don't get overrun with new processes. Then look at where your game or application stopped running and look at the processes immediately after that. It is more than likely that one of those first three or four programs to run thereafter will be your culprit, in my case the webcam suite. Things likes videocard suites or messenger programs are likely suspects. Try uninstalling and reinstalling stuff to see if it helps.

Anyway, I hope this helps. I was unable to find any useful help when I was encountering this problem, so I hope my post helps you find yours. Good luck!